Spring-Heel'd Jack, The Terror of London — page 179: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SPRING-HEEL D JACK: THE TERROR OF LONDON. The man, half doubting the good faith of Jack, found some difficulty in getting the porter to arouse his master with the information that the thief was secured in the cellar; but that pompous gentleman at length resolved to do so, and believing that if such was indeed the case, that the informant was an accomplice, took the recaution of locking the door and placing the Lic in his pocket, as soon as he had suffered the man to enter the hall. He did not go and arouse Larkin himself, but summoned another servant from his bed, who came into the hall rubbing his eyes with both hands, an operation which he instantly desisted in when he perceived the miserable- looking creature who stood beside the porter. At the latter’s request, he proceeded to his employer’s chamber, and soon made Mr. Larkin acquainted with his message, and that gentle- man, as he leaped out of bed, requested all the male servants to be aroused, to accompany him to the cellar. In a few minutes all was commotion in the hotel, and no less than ten persons were assem- bled in the hall. , Mr. Larkin looked around upon the surprised and half-sleepy faces of his employés. “Where is Chambers?” he asked. ‘“‘I do not see him here.” The man who had called the speaker from his bed, replied that he could get no answer, and that the man was not in his room. Larkin shook his head. | “Then that’s the thief,’ he said. ‘ But follow me. No—some of you go first with a licht.” , Preceded by two of the men, and followed by the rest, the hotel proprietor made his way to the door of the stairs, which he unlocked, and thence down the ladder into the cellar where a ery of surprise and indignation broke from every lip, as their eyes rested on the crouching figure, and horror-struck face of the thief. “ At last,’ said Larkin, “ the robber is dis- covered ; but the man, where—oh, here he is,” he added, as the man, who had been forced along by. the domestics, stood forward. “ How did you know he was here ?”’ The man told his story, but suppressed the fact that Spring-heeled Jack and the gentleman who had sent him were one and the same. “ Very well,’ said Larkin, when he had con- eluded. ‘‘ Before you go I will give you the sum I promised the gentleman, who, of course, would be above accepting it himself. Take that fellow up to the hall,” he added, “and send for an officer.” The thief was seized and carried up to the hall, an officer sent for, and,in a short time, Jack saw him borne from the house a prisoner, shortly afterwards followed by the poor man, who clutched in his hand the means to buy bread and shelter ; and then Jack flung the end of his cigar into the road, and strode away. CHAPTER LXII. THE STRANGE CAT. Ir was about ten o’clock when Tobias Johnson, a retired carpenter, sat in the kitchen of his 181 little cottage, smoking a long clay pipe before the fire, and alternately watching the smoke curling upwards from the bowl and the fingers of an ancient dame, as she plyed the busy needle through and through the foot of a worsted stocking which she was darning. Tobias was one of those men who had always borne in mind the good old adage, that a penny saved is a Penny earned, and though he was never any- thing more than a journeyman, he had at the age of sixty-five amassed a sufficiency to pur- chase a piece of ground, build a small cottage thereon, and leave himself and wife something like a pound a week to live on. It was not much, certainly ; still, with careful management, the aged couple managed to get along pretty comfortable. Some of his neighbours looked upon him as a miserly fellow, but, in truth, Tobias was not miserly—he was simply careful. If he did not spend his evenings with his mates, while he fol- lowed his trade, at a public-house, he certainly did not deny himself his pint of beer at home; and there, cheered by his pipe and spouse, he laid the foundation of the little fortume which, at the age of nearly threescore, was sufficient to keep him from the workhouse. Those who condemned him would have done well had they followed his example—an example which the youth of the present day would do well to follow ; for, as Tobias used to say, pence grow to shillings, shillings to pounds, and in the course of time pounds furnish a home and inde- pendence. With such feelings, it cannot be wondered at that Tobias and his wife, spite of old age and srowins infirmities, were very happy, far more happy and independent than many of their neighbours, who looked upon the old couple with scorn, for on either side of his house more pretentious residences had been built, and were mostly inhabited by those who preferred show to comfort, and lived considerably above their means, a failing that may be seen to a very great extent in the present day in the suburbs. But Tobias was not aman to be frowned down by his neighbours because they wore fine cloth coats and white hats, and kid gloves, because their windows were dressed with fine curtains, and their passages sumptuously carpetted, and a poor littl girl, who ought to have been at school, was made an hideous fright by a little white cap stuck on the back of her head, and kept, not only to open the door to all summonses, but made to do all the house-work. No. . Tobias had none of this; if he was inde- pendent he was not proud. He would sweep the front of his own house, clean windows, knives and forks, boots and shoes, and tend his own garden, despite the contemptuous curling of his neighbours’ lips and the indignant tosses of the head of the little over-worked servant girl, His wife, too, was made in the same mould. The good old lady did not hesitate to hobble to market, and return with her arms laden with meat and vegetables, or any other necessary—a circumstance which, in the shabby genteel neigh- bourhood, was looked upon with absolute horror by the be-bugled and be-braided dames, who watched her from their parlour windows. eo pail ool KS Lele)